A North Carolina man who has been fighting for his release from jail where he’s been languishing for more than three years says his ex-girlfriend, who is a county magistrate, filed domestic violence charges against him and then abused her power to keep him behind bars.
Julius Bishop recently spoke to WBTV in a video call from a Mecklenburg County jailhouse, where he talked about his ongoing battle against the domestic abuse allegations he faces.
Those charges were filed by magistrate Ashley Blackwell, Bishop’s ex-girlfriend, and stem from an incident on July 9, 2021.
The pair recounted the events of that day in their own domestic violence protective order (DVPO) filings.
Bishop stated that he confronted Blackwell because he caught her cheating. During the confrontation, Blackwell allegedly punched him, then threatened to “kill herself” if he got a protective order against her.
In Blackwell’s version of events, she said that Bishop confronted her about an email and then threatened, pushed, and choked her. Bishop admitted that he choked her, but said that she consented to the act as part of their sexual relationship several times.
“I knew something was weird about the situation with her giving me consent and then one day she tells me to stop, and I stopped,” Bishop told WBTV, adding that he believes Blackwell was trying to set him up and end their relationship to commit to another one.
Blackwell’s protective order was granted but Bishop’s was denied.
Then, in August 2021, Bishop was arrested for violating Blackwell’s protective order after he showed up at a home the couple shared even though they amended a lease to keep Bishop’s name on the property records and remove Blackwell’s.
“I showed the police a copy of the one that I had done, and she signed, and they went with her because she was a (magistrate), of course, and they all knew her,” Bishop said.
Regardless, Blackwell was arrested and charged with five counts of domestic violence protective order violations.
State law bars individuals arrested for domestic violence from leaving jail for at least 48 hours, but Bishop was jailed for a month before his bond was set. For the next three months, his bond wavered around $10,000 and included other conditions.
Then, on Dec. 15, 2021, a grand jury indicted him on four more charges in the domestic violence case including felony stalking, assault by strangulation, assault on a female, and communicating threats.
Two weeks later, his bond was set at $100,000. He was unable to pay that amount and has been in jail ever since.
“She thinks she can do whatever she wants,” Bishop said about Blackwell. “The thing that hurts me the most is I’ve been here for three years, and I’ve lost eight family members that I should have buried in the ground.”
In March 2023, another county magistrate filed a complaint against Blackwell accusing her of entangling romantic relationships in her work and requesting special treatment from judges for a romantic interest facing criminal charges.
The complaint claimed that she had romantic relationships with criminal defendants, including one convicted of manslaughter, and a sheriff’s deputy assigned to the county courthouse.
“There is no reason for a Magistrate Judge to act so immoral, unethical, and lying as she has,” Magistrate Cheryl Ivery wrote in her complaint.
Those court documents also alleged that Blackwell told Ivery that she had a “special relationship” with former Chief District Judge Elizabeth Trosch, who once oversaw all the magistrates in the county and was the judge who approved Blackwell’s DVPO.
On the matter of her relationship with Bishop, Ivery wrote that Blackwell told her that Bishop caught her cheating and they got into a huge argument in July 2021.
“I asked her if he touched her and she said ‘no,’” Ivery wrote in the complaint. “However, more than a month later, she then said she got a warrant against him for domestic violence.”
Ivery also wrote that Blackwell revealed that she requested Judge Trosch to change the judge overseeing the domestic violence case against Bishop because she didn’t like the way the case was being handled. Court records revealed that the judge was swapped out, according to WBTV.
Blackwell was suspended from her duties pending an investigation and hearing into the complaint. In December 2023, she was reinstated to her position after a judge ruled that he did not find “clear and convincing evidence” that Blackwell “improperly used her position to influence” case outcomes.
The judge also ruled that Blackwell never fabricated the story about Bishop.
Bishop has still not gone to trial in the domestic violence case.
Concerns over his mental health have surfaced in court and partly account for why his trial has been delayed. Police records show Blackwell told police in 2021 that Bishop was schizophrenic, which Bishop denied.
In 2022, his court-appointed attorney requested a forensic evaluation, claiming Bishop displayed constant mood swings and irrational thoughts.
Bishop rejected those evaluation attempts, but a judge ordered him to have a mental health evaluation in 2023. His results showed he never had a history of mental illness. He also completed a capacity restoration program to affirm his mental fitness and move his case forward.
He said that prosecutors offered him a plea deal for time served, but he rejected the bargain, saying, “You keep that plea because of defamation of my character, character assassination.”
Before he was arrested, Bishop ran a non-profit called Positive Youth Transformation to mentor children in the community.
He says he hopes that when he’s released, he can return to that impactful work.
His trial date has been set for Feb. 24, 2025.
